Francisco. The following year, Robot
Battles not only moved into a larger
hall — the 800 person capacity
Regency Ballroom of the Hyatt
Regency Atlanta — but was also
staged on a smaller scale at the
January Chattacon convention in
Chattanooga, TN, marking the first
time that the event had been held
separate from Dragon*Con. The
move into a larger facility and the
continued spread of awareness
about robotics sports made for a
record event, with more robots and
a larger crowd than ever before.

1998 was also the first year
that Lockhart started his tradition
of wearing his signature bizarre
costumes on stage as he hosted the
event. Over the years, audiences
have been subjected to everything
from full Roman Centurion dress
armor to the skinniest Elvis
impersonator they’ve ever seen,
to Monty Python’s “Spamalot” to
this past year’s bizarre melding of
Willy Wonka and The Joker.

One of the more unusual
aspects of Robot Battles that makes
it stand out amongst the other
competitions (aside from its
longevity and Sumo-style rule set) is
the nature of how it is presented.

Many longtime attendees refer to
the event as a combination robotic
competition and nightclub comedy
act. There are many people who
come to the events as much for
the on-stage antics as for the
competition itself.

But what really kicked off the
growth and popularity of Robot
Battles was when BattleBots
debuted on Comedy Central in
2000, and the heretofore
underground sport became a
national obsession. Robot Battles
responded by adding weight categories and reaching out to schools
and universities to bring in new
contestants — especially younger
ones. The result was incredibly
positive, and continues to this day.
There are more teenage — and
younger — contestants participating
in Robot Battles than any other
robotic combat event (not counting
the FIRST events, obviously, since
they are not considered robotic
combat). And they are competing
quite well. In fact, the current
record for youngest tournament
winner is nine years old, winning
the 12 pound weight class in 2007
at North Carolina’s StellarCon
competition.

In addition to expanding
weight categories, Robot Battles
also began expanding from its
Atlanta base in the early part of the
decade. Coming full-circle to their
roots in Denver, in 2003, Robot
Battles came to the Denver Opus
Fantasy Arts convention with
assistance from Llewellyn and several
other of the mad scientists. It was
that year that Lockhart was granted
full membership in the Denver Mad
Scientists Society, something of
which he is quite proud of and finds
very amusing to add to his resume.

Today, 19 years and 35 events
after its inception, Robot Battles is
larger and more popular than ever
before. In addition to dealing with
standing-room-only crowds at nearly
every event, Robot Battles is very
pleased to continue its expansion
this year by hosting an event at the
Orange County Convention Center
in Orlando, FL in February as part of
the MegaCon convention.

If you’d like to learn more
about Robot Battles, where the
next events will be, and read one of
the most concise (and amusing)
rule sets in the entire sport, head
on over to their website at
www.robotbattles.com. SV

PARTS IS PARTS:

Flipper Calculat rs Turn

“Cut and Try” (nearly)

into Science

● by Kevin Berry

Irecently ran across a couple of
very well written websites that
show how to design pneumatic
flippers. Most of us use very
empirical, “try it and see” techniques, but these teams from the
UK have turned flipper design into

science. The “Hassocks Hog” team
— veterans of Robot Wars — has set
up a step-by-step guide to design
your flipbot (www.hassockshog.
co.uk/flipper_calculator.htm).

First, you download a
spreadsheet. After picking the

geometry of the mechanism,
proposed dimensions are entered.
Next, the specifics of your
pneumatic setup are entered. The
outputs are graphs showing height
and trajectory of your victim, and
the pressure profile of your system.